Devon Dick

The recent ruling by an ICC panel that the Pakistan cricket captain Inzamam ul-Haq was not guilty of ball tampering but was guilty of bringing the game into disrepute demonstrates that the ICC stands for I C Cover-up. The ruling failed to recognise that the premise of bringing the game into disrepute hinges on the accusation that ball tampering occurred. Therefore, if the ball tampering is false then the case of bringing the game into disrepute falls flat.

In other words, if the ruling was not made that the Pakistani cricket team was a bunch of thieves then there would have been no protest action of returning a few minutes late after tea. The paradox of the situation is that if the Pakistan cricket team did not protest in the manner in which they did, there would not have been any investigation into the ball-tampering ruling. The umpires' decision was final! No match referee, based on the ICC law, can overturn it. No ICC body could overrule that decision.

Umpires should be punished

The truth is that Hair and Doctrove brought the game into disrepute by making a serious allegation and ruling that the Pakistanis were cheats. Since the ICC ruling found out that this outrageous ruling has no merit why aren't the umpires punished? The fans were robbed one day of cricket because of the high-handed actions of Hair and Doctrove. When players misbehave, there is a deduction of match fees. The umpires need to lose their salary. They also need to publicly apologize to the Pakistanis and the cricketing world. They should be suspended for at least 8 Test matches. Since the ruling was that there was no ball tampering and since based on Hair's ruling the England team was given five bonus runs will the score be changed to reflect that there was no ball tampering? Will the decision to forfeit the Test match be reversed?

In addition, the ICC is guilty of bringing the game into disrepute with the incomprehensible law that gives power to umpires to act as prosecutor, jury, judge and implementer of the sentence. That is not natural justice. The world is witnessing abuse of the justice system; so much so that a Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Republican president, George Bush was acting contrary to any legal provision in the treatment of suspects. Too many persons and sporting organizations are acting as a law unto themselves. They are playing God and want unquestioned obedience.

Just like slavery

It smacks of slavery days. Whenever those who were enslaved protested or ran away from their oppressors, they were deemed to have broken the law and severely punished. In fact, just before the act of emancipation became effective in August 1834, all those who ran away to freedom were still deemed to have brought the society into disrepute and they would have to return as enslaved persons before August 1, 1834 to enjoy 'apprenticeship' and not to be deemed criminals.

This ruling by the ICC is a cover-up for the umpires and the ICC bringing the game into disrepute. The local sporting boards are no different. Please read the correspondence between Michael Holding and the President of the WIBC on the WIBC website and you will understand further what I am saying.

Let us praise 'Inzi' for his actions. Otherwise we would never have known that the allegation of ball tampering was false.

In this ruling of the ICC, I C Cover-up.

Rev Devon Dick is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church and author of "Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building".